Edna Saunooke Goshorn was born in the Eastern Cherokee Indian Reservation in 1929. She attended Western Carolina University for two years and then trained as a nurse at Memorial Mission Hospital in Asheville, North Carolina. After graduating, she worked in the operating room at Memorial Mission. She also worked at hospitals in Arlington, Virginia and Baltimore, Maryland before marrying.
In the interview, Goshorn talks about her childhood and family, particularly the nurses in her family. She discusses home remedies, traditional medicine, and formal healthcare on the reservation when she was younger. She explains her decision to become a nurse and describes her education. She touches on such topics as uniforms, tuition, social life for student nurses, and her first experiences with the more intimidating aspects of medicine. She talks about her education both in and outside of the classroom, focusing particularly on her rotation with a public health nurse in the Asheville area. She talks briefly about the segregation of hospitals and about the perceptions of Native Americans that she encountered in her work. She describes her duties as an OR nurse and the different procedures involved in surgery. Goshorn speaks in detail about the changes in nursing and nurses over the course of her life.
